


No thing of consequence

by cm (mumblemutter)



Category: Pacific Rim (2013), Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Family, Grief, Inspired by Fanart, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-03
Updated: 2013-08-03
Packaged: 2017-12-22 07:54:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/910755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mumblemutter/pseuds/cm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thor and Loki, after the war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No thing of consequence

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this fanart](http://lokiagentofhotness.tumblr.com/post/57157638406/) by l'uccellino on Tumblr.

_For the people_  
_Who tell their families that they're sorry_  
_For things they can't and won't feel sorry for_

  

-

  

They never drifted together. There was a running joke, that the Odinson twins were the only blood relatives who would cause a nuclear meltdown if you put them in a Jaeger together. The theory had never been tested - every time they tried, their sparring turned vicious, competitive.

A dance, not a battle.

Loki's never been good at dancing, not with Thor.

-

They move in together, after the war. Thor's idea: Loki wants as far away from Hong Kong as possible, and Thor says, "Jesus Christ Loki. Wherever, I'll go with you." There's an awful kind of hollowness in his eyes as he says this, even though his voice is perfectly calm. That's the only reason Loki says yes.

"Let's just go home," Loki says. "I want to go home."

A beachfront house that miraculously survived the war. Loki likes to sit and watch workers dismantling the wall. Pollution everywhere, but he doesn't mind. The noise is comforting. Amora sends emails, and sometimes text messages. She's in India, she's in Peru. _I'm not running_ , one message reads. _I know_ , Loki replies. They lie to one another because they can't. Because the truth, once found in the drift, can never be covered up again.

When he's not watching the construction he sits at the pool and watches Thor swim. Thor swims like a man being chased, like a man who can't sleep at night. Loki hears him pacing, or throwing hoops outside, in the middle of the night. The walls are thick and the back yard is far from Loki's bedroom, but still he hears Thor, every night.

-

"So I heard they're talking about commercializing the drift tech," Loki says, over breakfast.

Thor stills. "You heard or you're involved in."

"The tech's still patented by Odincorp. I'm in tentative discussions." Thor doesn't say a word, just stares at Loki like Loki just threatened to kill his puppy. "The war's over, Thor. Life goes on. This is a good thing."

"For some of us," Thor says. "Life goes on for some of us."

He walks out of the house, and Loki doesn't see him for three days. He doesn't worry, just makes a few discreet phone calls. But Thor's always led a charmed life, and he's famous. The most popular of the Jaeger pilots, even before he won the war for them. Handsome, blond, blue-eyed, effortlessly charming. More personable than Loki on the best of days. Marketable. Loki would put him as the face of the new tech, once it's ready, but Thor will never say yes.

Not now, not ever perhaps.

There's a bruise on his cheek when he returns. Loki says nothing, takes ice out of the fridge but Thor shakes his head, says, "It's too late for that."

Loki tosses the ice into the sink. "Yeah, I guess it is."

"A year."

"What?"

Thor's crossed his arms. "Next week. It will be a year since Dad died."

"Ah." Loki turns around and starts to fish around in the sink for ice cubes, for something to do with his hands. It's cold enough to burn, and he gives up after a while. Says, "You never said -"

"We weren't connected, if that's what you're asking. I didn't feel him die. I didn't feel Balder die. They were just gone. Snap your fingers and they're dead."

"People die in wars. That's what happens."

"Do you want to go visit his grave with me?"

Loki grips the edges of the counter with his fingers. "Not particularly, no," he says, and tries to keep his voice calm.

"You're still angry with him?"

"What, the man's dead. You can't harbor a grudge over the dead."

"Loki -"

Loki turns around. "What are you going to say now, Thor? You knew him far better than I ever did. Far better than I ever will."

"Just because we drifted together -"

"Don't tell me what it's like. I know what it's like. You can be honest with me, come on."

"I have enough of my own memories in my head," Thor says, and the quietness is worse than the yelling. "I can barely hold on to them, let alone Dad's and Balder's. You guys didn't get along. Don't put that on me."

"This is a joke," Loki says. "We don't get along either." He pushes himself away from the counter and starts to walk off, and Thor doesn't stop him.

-

Work keeps Loki busy during the week. He pushes ahead with the development of the drift tech, spends days in boardrooms and laboratories. Thor's technically still CEO, but he hasn't shown up to the office in months. So it's a surprise then, that he drops by one afternoon. There's a murmur on the floor, a faint undercurrent of excitement. As if a rock star just showed up.

Thor sprawls in the chair across from Loki and looks out the floor to ceiling windows, says, "How can you stand it, looking out at all this destruction."

"It's not the destruction that holds my interest," Loki says. "It's that it's being rebuilt."

"So everything just goes back to normal?"

"That's the idea."

Thor closes his eyes, leans back. "I can't," he says. "I'm in the drift, and I can't get out."

"I know," Loki says.

-

"How do you do it," Thor asks, after Loki drives them home.

"I just do." At Thor's look he amends, "I've always been good at outwardly coping. That's what Mom taught us, remember? Just pretend until it's true."

"I'm tired of pretending."

"Amora's not dead," Loki says. "She's not dead, and sometimes I feel her, and I feel less alone. That's how I cope."

"Yeah," Thor says. "Yeah. Hey, you wanna go a round or two?"

"The two of us in a ring together? That's never a good idea."

But he agrees anyway.

Thor was always bigger than him, stronger than him. But Loki had speed and agility on his side. Not nearly an even match, but Loki always tried his best.

This time's no different from the last.

They were trained in Muay Thai, Judo, Sambo, and part of the reason why Loki bought the place in the first place is because of the built-in gym, the boxing ring at the center of it all.

Five rounds later and they're both on the floor, scrambling at one another and wishing their gloves were off. Loki's bleeding from the nose and Thor has a cut over his eye. It makes Loki inordinately proud, that cut. He has rarely been able to damage Thor.

He's on his back, Thor on top of him, and he can feel the heat emanating from Thor's body, feel the weight of him, solid and reassuring. Thor looks anything but, though. He blinks sweat out of his eyes as they stare at one another, faces barely apart, and then the fight, abruptly, bleeds out of him.

He heaves himself off Loki, ends up on his back next to him. "I can't," he says. "I can't pretend. Everything's just fucked."

"Yeah," Loki says, because he's tired of pretending too. "Yeah, it is."

-

Thor says, when Loki puts the prototype headset on the table, "We're not compatible, remember."  

Loki smiles, wry. "We don't have to be. It only matters when you need to operate a Jaeger. Now it's just some mind-melding tech."

"I don't think we should drift together," Thor says.

"We probably shouldn't," Loki replies, too brightly. "Let's do it anyway." Thor picks up the headset, and for a moment Loki wants to tell him, "Don't break it, this is millions of dollars of R&D," but then Thor just might do it, and so he doesn't.

"You realize this will be weaponized in a year, right?"

"It's a brave new world, remember? We don't have borders anymore."

"We had a common enemy before. Now we don't."

"And here I thought I was the cynic," Loki says, and cracks a smile, but his heart's not in it. Everything's going to hell and he's drowning. He rests his elbows on his knees, presses his palms together. He could be praying, if there was a god for him to believe in.

"It's supposed to get better," Thor says.

"Take it from someone with experience. It never does."

When they were young they would run around in restricted areas of the base. They were the children of the revolution, heroes almost from birth, and nothing scared them. Or at least, nothing scared Thor. Loki was always scared, deep down. This horrible frisson of fear.

Thor hands him the headset. "I can't," he says. "I'm sorry, I can't."

-

It's three days before Thor's sitting across from Loki in the office, going, "He was proud of you, I hope you know that."

"Is that what you're afraid of? That I will find out the truth about what he thought of me when we drift?"

Thor pauses, for the longest time. "You'll only find out what I think of you, I'm afraid. And I don't think that will be a surprise."

"How do I know what you really think of me?"

"You know." Thor shakes his head, and for a moment he looks like a ghost, as if Loki's hand could pass right through him. Amora thought about Thor often enough, and Loki can't always shake off the drift feedback. He wonders, sometimes, what Thor sees when he looks at him. They're all just echoes of how someone else saw them. "I wish", Thor says, "it mattered to you more than what he thought."

Loki has no response to that. He turns to the window, says, "Do you want to drift or not?" He can hear Thor shift in his chair, and in truth he's not even certain why he's the one asking for this. Amora was easy: they had no secrets, and in the drift all they did was enjoy one another's company. Everyone thought they were lovers, except that they weren't. Only Thor knew, and he never told anyone, as far as Loki can tell.

"It's weird you know, you in that suit and that mohawk."

"How will people recognize me if I get rid of it," Loki says, distracted. The building across the street is almost fully reconstructed. Loki can't remember time passing by that quick.

"I don't want to drift with you," Thor says. "I just want -"

"Yeah," Loki says, "I know."

They go for a drive instead, Thor cradling a box with the drift tech in his lap. They drive until it's dark, and the streets are still packed with people - everyone in a desperate rush to party now that the war is over.

Now that the war is won.

"We won, though," Loki says. "Didn't we?"

"I guess we did."

Loki pulls up at the gate of the cemetery, says, "It's today, right?"

Thor looks at his watch. "Yeah, just about. I don't think we're allowed in, though."

"As if that's ever stopped us." Loki pulls out a bottle of vodka from the backseat. Given to him by the Russians, Loki's been saving it for a special occasion. He supposes the death anniversary of all of them counts. "Come on."

It's easy enough to break in, Loki's broken into far more secure places, and then they wander around lost for a while, only their phones to guide them. Loki opens the bottle, and by the time they stumble across the headstone they're both well on their way to drunk.

Loki can only barely make out the inscription: "Odin Borson. Soldier, hero, father." Sounds about right.

Thor still has the box with him, tucked under one arm. He sits with his back against the stone, takes one of the headsets out. "Battery operated. That's kind of amazing."

"It will be even better once it reaches the market," Loki says, and tries to keep the excitement out of his voice.

"Has this been tested?"

"Of course. It's the same tech anyway - already proven."

Thor hands him the headset. "So you wanna?"

Loki turns it over in his hands, doesn't reply for the longest time.

"Well?"

"Maybe," he says. "Maybe we could just sit here for a while. The sun's coming up. I heard it's going to be clear skies all around."

"Okay," Thor says, and their hands brush as Loki passes the headset back to him. "We could do that, yeah."


End file.
